The Honda Prelude title will return to Australian showrooms for the primary time in 25 years with its deliberate arrival in mid-2026, however it received’t sit alongside any direct rivals nor set gross sales charts on fireplace, in response to the model.
The Prelude was beforehand a mainstay in a extremely aggressive sports activities automotive market which has shrunk to a handful of fashions, together with the Subaru BRZ and Toyota GR86, Ford Mustang, Nissan Z and Toyota Supra.
In keeping with Honda, none of those are direct rivals to the 2026 Prelude, which would be the first to supply a hybrid powertrain.
“By the character of it, it’s going to be just a little bit out there. There isn’t going to be something you’ll be able to neatly say, it’s a direct competitor of that – it’s simply seen in lots of completely different areas,” mentioned Honda Australia managing director, Rob Thorp.
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The sentiment is backed up by Honda Australia CEO Jay Joseph, who informed CarExpert: “Prelude is a extremely enjoyable automotive, however it’s not a high-volume automotive.
“It’s a little bit of a Swiss Military Knife – it actually doesn’t match neatly right into a phase and I believe that’s the chance that we get to leverage.”
Within the Prelude’s ultimate 12 months in Australia, 2001, whole gross sales throughout the ‘Sports activities’ phase have been 8820 throughout all makes, making up 1.14 per cent of all of the 772,681 new automobiles offered that 12 months.
In 2024, the identical Sports activities phase noticed 10,633 gross sales, making up a good smaller 0.87 per cent share of all new vehicles offered (not together with manufacturers like Mahindra, Tesla and Polestar manufacturers, which don’t report back to the official VFACTS figures, and would scale back this quantity additional).
Whereas the value of the Prelude in Australia is but to be introduced, it can enter a dramatically completely different battleground when it returns in mid-2026 – however does the sports activities automotive market have room for an additional competitor in Prelude?
“Sure, we expect it does,” Honda Australia managing director Ron Thorp informed CarExpert.
“We’ve truly been planning this for a short time, and … the character of the mannequin is it doesn’t match a market phase simply.
“It can, from a VFACTS perspective and pricing, however the buyer who we expect can be , it’s going to be fairly a large, broad base.”
“If you happen to have a look at [Civic] Sort R, we all know who desires to purchase Sort R,” Mr Thorp mentioned.
“Wanting on the Prelude, it might be a sports activities vehicles particular person, however you can kind of see, to be trustworthy, older males who used to personal them again within the 90s shopping for them once more – I believe it’s going to reattract lots of customers again to the Honda model.
“You may see it opening as much as a feminine viewers as properly due to the way in which it seems and drives and handles.
“We kind of assume that that is the place the client phase group may be,” Mr Thorp mentioned, with the Prelude doubtlessly in a position to “appeal to lots of completely different folks from lots of completely different areas”.
“It’s additionally going to supply a possibility to truly conquest and communicate to new prospects on the identical time, and the mix of the 2 will permit us to generate nice [brand] consciousness and begin to put Honda on a consideration checklist.”
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